Online talk and Psychology Seminar

I recently gave an online talk for a general audience entitled The Social Lives of Vampire Bats, hosted by Bat Conservation International. The video is below. https://www.youtube.com/embed/1e9_ZjUMfuo?si=6BqKKCV8eOZ-DSlC On Halloween Oct 31 at 12 noon, I'm also giving a talk entitled "Do Vampire Bats Have Friends?" for the Princeton Department of Psychology. LINK

Lab updates: Fall 2025

The lab is growing! We have two new PhD students, Bryson and Nakul. Bryson Loflin received his Bachelors in Biology from UNC Chapel Hill, where he was mentored by Karin Pfennig and did research on exploratory behaviors in spadefoot toads. He also worked with Matthew Zipple in Mike Sheehan's Lab on social behavior of re-wilded … Continue reading Lab updates: Fall 2025

Join me on July 2 in “Exploring the social lives of bats”

I am giving an online talk, Exploring the social lives of bats, on Wednesday July 2 at 9am - 10 am EST. It is for a seminar series called "My Field for Dummies" hosted by GBatNet (Global Union of Bat Diversity Networks). To attend, please RSVP here: https://www.gbatnet.org/events/my-field-for-dummies-social-lives-of-bats/ Photo by Charles J. Sharp

Latest paper: A cryptic role for reciprocal helping in a cooperatively breeding bird

Latest paper, A cryptic role for reciprocal helping in a cooperatively breeding bird was published yesterday in the journal Nature. It's an analysis of 20 years of field observations of African superb starlings. The key discovery is that both related and unrelated birds were taking turns for each other as ‘breeders’ and ‘helpers’ across their … Continue reading Latest paper: A cryptic role for reciprocal helping in a cooperatively breeding bird

Latest paper: Long-term cooperative relationships among vampire bats are not strongly predicted by their initial interactions

Our latest paper reports on two experiments, the first conducted by former undergraduate Vi Girbino and the second by former postdoc Simon Ripperger. Both experiments asked the same question: Can we predict social bond formation in vampire bats from the way two bats interact at their first encounter? The reason we care about this question … Continue reading Latest paper: Long-term cooperative relationships among vampire bats are not strongly predicted by their initial interactions

The 2024 Ohio Bat Fest will be in Columbus, Ohio on October 19

The Carter Lab will hosting the 2024 Ohio Bat Festival in Columbus, Ohio on October 19. Sadly, this will be the last time the Ohio Bat Fest will be hosted by the Carter Lab. In 2025, we hope the Ohio Bat Fest will move to Cincinnati. Click here to learn more. We thank PhD Candidate Julia Vrtilek … Continue reading The 2024 Ohio Bat Fest will be in Columbus, Ohio on October 19

Seeking potential Princeton Postdoctoral Fellows

Please help me get the word out. I am seeking postdoctoral candidates to nominate for the Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellows Program at Princeton University. The candidate could work on one of several ongoing projects involving cooperation and social bonding, depending on the candidate's background, but I also encourage more independent project ideas. Candidates will earn an … Continue reading Seeking potential Princeton Postdoctoral Fellows

Gerry starts HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholarship as an Associate Professor at Princeton University

As of September 1, I started my new position as an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. After a year-long delay, I am also finally starting my Freeman Hrabowski Scholarship with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Both of these new positions come with a huge amount of support for … Continue reading Gerry starts HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholarship as an Associate Professor at Princeton University

Updates July 2024

Imran Razik will be defending his PhD dissertation entitled "Determinants of Social Bonding in Vampire Bats". The talk will be Wednesday July 10, 2024 at 9am in Aronoff Lab room 104. See zoom info below. If you want to attend the talk on zoom, then email Imran or me (gerry[[at]]socialbat.org) for the Zoom password. Jordan … Continue reading Updates July 2024

New paper: dyadic contact calling rates within groups of disc-winged bats are not predicted by kinship or association rates

There is a vast global enterprise collectively called the “social sciences”. It includes all of economics, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and so on. The goal of this massive undertaking is to understand the social lives of humans. The major scientific contribution of my life is to better understand the social lives of bats. Bats live … Continue reading New paper: dyadic contact calling rates within groups of disc-winged bats are not predicted by kinship or association rates